


Chick A Boom

by nicasio_silang



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 13:36:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3612006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicasio_silang/pseuds/nicasio_silang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cisco isn’t a sushi guy, but Dr. Wells invited him out to dinner like this was just a thing they did all the time, so here he is, ordering the firecracker shrimp roll, knocking back cups of miso and shots of sake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chick A Boom

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place early S1, let's say.

Cisco isn’t a sushi guy, but Dr. Wells invited him out to dinner like this was just a thing they did all the time, so here he is, ordering the firecracker shrimp roll, knocking back cups of miso and shots of sake. 

“You’re nervous,” says Dr. Wells.

“Who, me?” 

“Cisco,” Dr. Wells does that thing where he runs a thumb along the arm of his glasses. A long thumb, knobbed knuckles. “It’s just me.” 

“Is it?” Cisco tries on a grin, loses it the next moment. “Sorry, it’s just. Out in public, I kind of remember that you’re Dr. Harrison Wells, and I’m, you know. Taco Tuesday.”

“Sorry?”

“School nickname. Terrible school nickname—no imagination, no flourish. Paco the Taco, and then Paco Tuesday, then Taco Tuesday. I don’t even like tacos. That’s not a meal, you know? No frijoles.” 

“And so you became Cisco.”

“Never liked Paco anyway.”

Their food comes. Cisco’s has a tail; Dr. Wells’ has tentacles. Cisco resists the urge to pick up the roll and eat it like a corndog. He is a young urban professional out to dinner with a world-renowned polymath. He’s wearing a tie. Well, he’s wearing a t-shirt that has a tie printed on it, but from a distance it’s somewhat convincing. Dr. Wells pours soy sauce onto the smallest plate Cisco has ever seen, then drops a whopping dollop of wasabi into it. 

“From what I hear,” he says, “a name change can be a powerful thing, psychologically speaking. It can make you believe you’ve been reborn. That you are, in a way, someone entirely new.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I get that. You know, when I put it on my resume for STAR Labs, that was the first time I called myself Cisco.”

“Is that so?” Dr. Wells is smiling at him, right at him. 

“I didn’t think Paco could land that job, but some guy called Cisco?” He shrugs. “Maybe he could.”

He manages smug for half a second before the firecracker part of the firecracker shrimp hits him, then he’s coughing and slurping miso and shoving white rice in his face hole. Wasabi heat isn’t like the heat he’s used to. Like the jungle to the desert. New parts of his tongue light up. His eyes are closed and he misses the maneuvering that lands Dr. Wells beside him, slapping him on the back. It’s an empty gesture, really, he’s not choking, just wussing out. It helps, though. Dr. Wells has long, firm hands.

“I’m good!” Cisco announces to the restaurant in general. “Good, I’m good. Sorry, thanks Dr. Wells.”

“Harrison,” Dr. Wells says, his hand stills on the rise and fall of Cisco’s back.

“No,” says Cisco, laughing through the remaining discomfort.

“I’d really prefer it, outside of work at least.”

“Okay, well, I can try? But I gotta tell you it feels weird.” If Dr. Wells has his hand on Cisco’s back, that’s one thing. If some man named Harrison, in a tight black Henley, expensive glasses, and with long, firm hands was taking him out for sushi and resting his palm on Cisco’s back, well. Weird isn’t the most honest word for how that feels.

Another couple breaths, and Dr. Wells moves back around to his side of the table and picks up his chopsticks. It takes far too long a silence for Cisco to realize that he might have hurt his feelings. 

“It’s not that I don’t…” he starts, but that isn’t going to help. “You’re my boss,” he finally says. Dr. Wells recoils, just the slightest bit. Cisco feels it in his gut.

“I had hoped that we were also friends,” Dr. Wells says to his food. In the shyest gesture Cisco has ever seen from him, he hides the end of his sentence in a bite of sushi. 

“Oh, man, I’m sorry, I’m an asshole, of course we’re friends. I just, I still get kind of nervous sometimes. You’re—”

“Harrison.”

“—you.” They laugh. Dr. Wells sets his chopsticks across the top of his rice bowl.

“Dr. Wells is a man who let a lot of people down. Let you down. If you would…” he makes a gesture towards Cisco that could mean anything, really. “It would help me feel new.”

Cisco says, “I get that. Harrison.” The name tastes like wasabi. “I’ll give it the ol’ college try.” 

He gets a smile, and then he smiles, and then they’re smiling and drinking sake, Cisco and Harrison Wells eating dinner out in the swanky part of east Central City, the part where the river twinkles and even Keystone looks like magic out across the bridge. 

Under the table, Dr. Wells’ foot knocks against Cisco’s shin. It’s an accident, and Cisco knows that Dr. Wells probably doesn’t even know it happened. But he leans forward, just a bit, anyway.


End file.
